The PC is one of the most popular gaming platforms in the world, and one that’s constantly changing. Here at The Verge we cover every aspect, including the latest hardware developments from companies like Nvidia and Logitech, massively popular games like Fortnite and Overwatch, and hugely influential digital platforms like Steam and itch.io.
GameHub on Android let Sean Hollister play the Steam version of Hollow Knight: Silksong on his phone, and GameSir says its new Mac app is “coming soon.” Gamesir claims the app will let you run Windows games natively, and it’s teasing a new controller, too.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is coming to PC on March 19th, after previously being a PlayStation 5 exclusive. It’ll feature unlocked framerates, ultrawide support, upscaling, and frame generation.
It’s out of stock in the US and in parts of Asia, as reported by Windows Central. We reached out to Valve this morning to ask about it, but didn’t get a reply.
Wonder if it’s partly due to the component supply shortages that will affect the price of the Steam Machine.
HP has started offering subscriptions to rent its laptops, including its Victus and Omen gaming laptops ranging from $50 per month up to $129 per month, PC Gamer reports. There’s no option to own the laptop that you’re subscribed to, but HP will let you trade it in for an upgrade every year.
Just a few years after Overwatch 2’s free-to-play 5v5 replaced the original, Blizzard announced it’s dropping the “2.” There’s been a steady flow of other changes lately (like the return of 6v6), but the plan for this next year includes 10 new heroes (Domina, Emre, Mizuki, Anran, and Jetpack Cat arrive when S1 launches February 10th), new maps, menu updates, a Conquest meta event, Reign of Talon narrative arc, and more.
There’s a great Steam PC game bundle available at Humble for the next two weeks and change. The “Sci-Fi Shooters 2.0” bundle includes the System Shock 2 remaster, the Star Wars: Dark Forces remaster, Doom Eternal, and more fun games for just $20 (a $224 value). Proceeds go to non-profit organizations including One Tree Planted and Cool Effect.
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Egyptian regulators are planning a ban on the gaming platform to “protect children’s moral and educational values,” Bloomberg reports. Egypt will join a growing list of countries blocking Roblox, including Turkey and Russia. Some U.S. states are also eyeing restrictions on Roblox.
Nvidia promised to deliver a native GeForce Now Linux app earlier this month, and it’s now releasing a beta today. The native Linux app is a highly requested feature for GeForce Now, especially as subscribers have had to rely on unofficial apps or browser tweaks to get access to the service.
The beta is available for Ubuntu 24.04 and newer starting today, and Nvidia will expand support to additional Linux distributions soon.
Nvidia is launching Remix Logic today, a new RTX Remix update that allows modders to add dynamic graphics effects inside games.
You’d normally need source code or engine access to do this, but Remix Logic will let modders easily control weather systems and add new gameplay systems in classic games. It’s available today through Nvidia’s desktop app.
And to celebrate, through the end of January and early February, the studio is going to be airing a series of showcases covering its biggest games: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone, and Diablo. You can check out the full schedule right here.
And we’re done! Lawyers for Epic and Google have asked for a few weeks to talk amongst themselves and file one more brief by early March. Judge Donato says yes “just so long as we are clearly duel-tracked and the order is going forward.” He wanted to be sure Google is actually complying, and Google says it is. Epic says the court-ordered technical committee, where Google and Epic must hammer out the details of store-within-a-store and catalog access, is up and running too.
Sweeney, earlier today: “Every store will be able to do a much better job of serving US users if it can reach a worldwide audience.”
Epic’s lead attorney has continued to push on that with Dr. Rose, who says she was not assigned or resourced to explore “all of the fundamental economic issues,” but admits she doesn’t know if other app makers would think the whole world is as important to their business as Sweeney suggests Epic does. (Again, the Epic Google proposed settlement would change things globally, but the current injunction only applies in the US, while Epic and Google continue to fight elsewhere in the world.)
He tried a few other questions with Dr. Rose as well, but I didn’t catch anything particularly interesting. She has now stepped down, and we’re going into Epic and Google’s logistics for the next steps going forward, presumably before the judge gives us his final thoughts for the day.
When we return from the short break, Epic’s lead attorney gets to ask Dr. Rose more questions, and the judge has asked he doesn’t use that time to come up with “800 more.” Dr. Bornstein, Epic’s CEO, and both Bornstein and colleague Yonatan Even seemed to be in a tight huddle drafting one or two, though, which Bornstein seemed to jot down. Now, Google lead attorney Glenn Pomerantz is whispering in Bornstein’s ear as well.
“You’ve got a hike to tell me that something has changed so much in the world that I should change that injunction, and I’m not hearing it,” he tells Epic and Google here in the courtroom.
We’re taking a 10-minute break, because the court reporter says she’s already typed 140 pages today and the fingers need a sec. Wow.
Epic lead attorney Gary Bornstein is seemingly suggesting that that because the injunction doesn’t specifically stop Google from adding more friction, the proposed settlement where Google removes that friction would be better (by creating explicit programs for registered rival app stores).
Dr. Rose says she isn’t assuming Google’s behavior will stop, but thinks it’s in Google’s best interests not to get hauled back before the court. She says the court has to balance the pluses and minuses of the proposals before it, she’s just here to say that the settlement doesn’t seem to fix the network effects that led to Google’s firm grip over Android apps.
Epic’s lead attorney is asking Dr. Rose whether her analysis took proper account of whether having rival appstores available worldwide on Android might be more helpful than only mandating US app stores. The court’s existing injunction would mandate that rival stores would have the whole catalog of Android apps from day one.
Dr. Rose says “you can go to users and say we have all the apps you want to see when you join our app store, and similarly you can say to app developers that we’re going to have the whole catalog.”
Bornstein: “It does provide immediate access to a very small subset of those users.” But “it’s just the 4-5 percent of Android users who happen to live in this country,” he argues.
Both Dr. Rose and Judge Donato agree that we don’t know how much revenue that 4-5 percent generates. Donato rejects Epic’s offer to bring up a Google witness with a revenue figure, because Epic and Google are now working together and so there’s no lawyer here who can properly cross-examine that witness.
Google lead attorney Glenn Pomerantz says “it’s a lot” and seemingly wants to go point by point with her on a future date. The judge says they can do it right here and now in the courtroom. Epic lead attorney Gary Bornstein is going first.
You’ll have to scroll down in our Epic v. Google StoryStream until I have time to go find the link, but Dr. Rose is showing up Dr. Bernheim’s earlier ideas here.
She says it’s “problematic to assume that Google will go back to the behavior that a jury found violated the antitrust laws” after the current three-year injunction ends, and that Epic could simply come back to the court to say so if it does, and perhaps ask for a three-year extension after the first three years are up. She’s also not sure why Google wouldn’t revert to bad behavior after six years if we’re assuming it would do so after three.
She says the court-ordered technical committee between Google and Epic can enact the other ideas in the settlement if they want. She also says that “decades of analysis in rate regulation” show that Google lowering its app store fees are not a substitute for creating a competitive market.
She tells the court it’s like a market owner who bars the doors and locks the gates after customers arrive, then a ditch outside fills with water “too deep and wide for anyone to cross.”
“It’s not going to help to tell the market owner to unlock the doors,” she says. “You have to lower the drawbridge for a while.” She says Judge Donato’s original injunction, which forces Google to crack open its app store by letting the apps out, is that drawbridge, and that Epic and Google are now trying to get rid of the drawbridge part.
Now that we’re done with Epic’s CEO and Google’s Android boss — both of whom are still in the room — Dr. Rose is here with her thoughts after evaluate the antitrust and economic effects of the proposed settlement. She says the court assigned her to do that.
Judge Donato asks Google’s Android boss whether he sees the catalog injunction (which would force Google to share its catalog of Google Play apps with rival stores) as a plus or minus. Samat says it’s a minus, primarily because Google doesn’t want to get blamed by developers and users when there are issues. He says he foresees Google getting caught in the middle between users, developers, and competing stores.
“Is that the only thing you can think of, that a developer might get upset because there’s a store they don’t want to be associated with?” asks Judge Donato. “The minus for Google is that catalog access and hosting rival app stores on Google Play creates competition that didn’t exist before, right?”
I missed getting the whole quote, but Samat says “we were seeking a way of achieving that goal without a fee in the middle.” Samat is done for the day, and we’re all taking another 10-minute break.
Judge Donato tells Android boss Sameer Samat that he already understands Google prefers the new proposed settlement to his injunction partly because it would settle litigation around the world. (Samat said he thinks international regulators may take their cues from the settlement too, because they see Epic as an advocate.) But he wants to know Google’s other motivations.
“By my reading of the deal, you are getting a lot, everything from hundreds of millions of payments over six years from one partnership, to Epic who said Google was a fake platform now championing the Android ecosystem [..] you’re getting a big present from Epic, so what are you doing for Epic?”
“Is there anything aside from buying peace globally?”
Samat says yes, he personally negotiated the new proposed settlement with Epic, starting last fall. He’s being questioned by Google’s lead attorney Glenn Pomerantz, as he’s Google’s witness; Epic and the judge have been asking all the questions up till now. Like Epic’s Sweeney, he says the reason to settle was to “reduce the amount of effort and energy” it would spend to keep fighting around the world.
“With the friction screens we lost 65 percent of users, with them removed we’re trending towards a 20 percent drop off rate,” he says, “which gives us confidence that installing stores from the web is a completely viable solution.” The point here is that Google and Epic’s new settlement no longer forces Google to host stores within its own store, but it does commit to removing the friction for web-based sideloading... as long as the stores are registered with Google’s proposed program and jump through whatever hoops Google has.
